Edward C. Tolman, in full Edward Chace Tolman (born April 14, 1886, West Newton, Massachusetts, U.S.—died November 19, 1959, Berkeley, California), American psychologist who developed a system of psychology known as purposive, or molar, behaviourism, which attempts to explore the entire action of the total organism.

Brother of the chemist and physicist Richard C. Tolman, Edward Tolman taught psychology at the University of California, Berkeley (1918–54). Although influenced by a number of other psychologists, including Edwin B. Holt, his system perhaps owes one of its most obvious debts to Gestalt psychology, which strives to understand the components of mental life as structured wholes. About 1922 he began to assert that the stimulus-response behaviourism of John B. Watson was too limited, because it selected the conditioned reflex as the unit of habit. Tolman advanced his system in his major work, Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men (1932). He suggested that the unit of behaviour is the total, goal-directed act, using varied muscular movements that are organized around the purposes served and guided by cognitive processes. His system remained behaviourist by its adherence to objective observation and rigorous experimental procedures.

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March 4, 1881 West Newton, Mass., U.S. Sept. 5, 1948 Pasadena, Calif. U.S. physical chemist and physicist who demonstrated the electron to be the charge-carrying particle in the flow of electricity in metals and determined its mass.

school of psychology founded in the 20th century that provided the foundation for the modern study of perception. Gestalt theory emphasizes that the whole of anything is greater than its parts. That is, the attributes of the whole are not deducible from analysis of the parts in isolation. The word...

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(1886-1959), U.S. psychologist, born in West Newton, Mass; taught at University of California, Berkeley (1918-54); developed system of psychology known as purposive, or molar, behaviorism; influenced by Gestalt psychology; suggested that behavior is a goal-directed act, using varied muscular movements organized about the purposes served, and guided by cognitive processes; major work ’Purposive Behavior in Animals and Man’ (1932).

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